


The Call of Cthulhu

by spnredemption



Series: Redemption Road [38]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 04:38:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spnredemption/pseuds/spnredemption
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The dreamer has stopped sleeping…</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call of Cthulhu

**Author's Note:**

> **Masterpost:** **[Supernatural: Redemption Road](http://spn-redemption.livejournal.com/1552.html)** (for full series info, warnings, and disclaimer)  
>  **Authors:** [](http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/profile)[**swordofmymouth**](http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/) and [](http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/profile)[**zatnikatel**](http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/)  
>  **Characters/Pairing:** Dean/Castiel, Sam, OC and canon characters  
>  **Rating:** R  
>  **Wordcount:** ~16,000  
>  **Warnings:** language, violence, sexuality  
>  **Betas:** [](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/profile)[**dotfic**](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/) , [](http://murron.livejournal.com/profile)[**murron**](http://murron.livejournal.com/) , and [](http://nyoka.livejournal.com/profile)[**nyoka**](http://nyoka.livejournal.com/)  
>  **Authors' notes:** The poem Dean quotes is _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ , by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The movie dialogue is from _The Court Jester_.  
>  **Art:** Chapter banner by [](http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/profile)[**swordofmymouth**](http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/) and [](http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/profile)[**zatnikatel**](http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/) ; digital painting by [](http://smallworld-inc.livejournal.com/profile)[**smallworld_inc**](http://smallworld-inc.livejournal.com/), which you can also find **[here](http://spn-redemption.livejournal.com/46457.html)** (art contains spoilers for the chapter)

_Southern Pacific Ocean_  
 _47°9'S 126°43'W_

The world might be about to end again.

There's a demon hogtied in the lower cabin of the wheeled barge chained to the back end of the Duck, and Dean can hear the distant, furious drumming of her heels against the hull.

It's day three of this, as they meander across the South Pacific at a leisurely four knots or so. Dean has learned how to say _bite me_ in forty-seven languages, including Enochian, even if it sounds like he's coughing up a short, curly hair whenever he says it. According to Castiel that leaves roughly six thousand, four hundred and fifty three to go. Castiel has learned how to play Texas hold 'em, Omaha high, seven and five-card stud, triple draw, crazy pineapple, badugi, and razz. He's holding two hundred seventy markers and even if it takes Dean months to give him that many blowjobs, goddammit, he'll try.

Dean can feel himself turning pink and blistering, and if he squints in at the sides of his nose he can see his skin is already peeling, but he doesn't give a shit. He's taking five from the mind-numbing boredom to feast his eyes on his significant other, stretched out on the deck in half-sleep, bare-chested and barefooted, a hand resting on his belly as he soaks up the sun.

Dean stares at Castiel from his vantage point a couple of feet higher, where he's stretched out along a rudimentary bench fashioned from a strip of ply resting atop ten squat fuel barrels stowed at the front of the barge. And nope, he doesn't give a shit about burning, or about the fact his own sweat is gluing him to the thin vinyl seat pad that just about cushions his ribs. He doesn't give a shit because all he does give a shit about right now is watching the idle pick and slide of Castiel's finger as he scratches and rubs at the perspiration glistening on his skin.

Dean tracks its aimless progress down to the dark line of hair that starts at Castiel's navel and disappears behind the open, _open!_ top button of the faded old rag blues Castiel inherited from him and wears so damn low on his hips that Dean can see the sharp points of bone poking out, still bruised with the hickies he nipped into the skin there overnight en route to a serious attempt at sucking Castiel's brain out through his dick. Dean has to stop himself from reaching over to run the pad of his finger across the mole under Castiel's nipple, and he knows that if he were to drape himself over Castiel and lick a wet stripe across his tattoo, the curling script would taste of salt-spray and sea breezes. Castiel is tanned, and under the shades Dean knows there is a smattering of freckles to match his own. And he knows how Castiel feels exploding inside him, loves Castiel like he has never loved, and it makes him feel so damned dizzy and delighted that in his head he's singing REO Speed-Foreigner on a loop. And it turns out Kevin Cronin really does sing it from the heart, like Jo told him all those years ago, and not from the hair at all—

"I don't understand that reference."

Fuck, _thinking aloud_ , and Dean goggles idiotically for a few seconds as Castiel does that quizzical-perplexed half-smile and pushes his shades up, so that Dean feels his heart do a delicious little skip and twirl at the gleam of blue against the tan.

"What is REO Speed-Foreigner?" Castiel asks him.

"It's code," Dean tells him, and his friend's eyes go soft and fond because he _knows_. It's the same naked affection that shone out of them back in the waterfall cave they sheltered in, when Dean bared his heart, and the memory gives Dean a little push, so that he does reach down and put his palm against Castiel's cheek. "It means I lo—"

Momentarily distracted by the bout of coughing that explodes from the cabin ahead of them, Dean glances up there to see his brother looking back at him and rolling his eyes. "Get a room," Sam says, and Dean flips him a lazy bird in response.

"Quack, quack," he mocks, and directs his gaze down again to see a blank look this time. "It's a Duck,” he reminds Castiel, with a slap of his hand down on the side of the boat. "They do tours with them in Boston. You sit there and quack at passersby." He directs his attention back towards the bow, hollers, "Are we there yet?"

As if in answer, the craft makes a grinding noise that sounds like it has a pack-a-day habit, and the engine cuts out abruptly. Dean doesn't wait for his brother to send up a white flare, he pushes up to a sit and stretches, groaning at the pull of muscles made tender by two nights of sleeping on the same thin pad he's sunbathing on now.

Castiel catches his eye again. "I could…?"

"Magic finger me?" Dean leers. "Later."

Castiel narrows his eyes in a contemplative way that sends a tendril of _gonna hit that so damn hard_ slithering through Dean's belly before he slips his shades back down. Dean stands and steps over him, winces at the cranking sound coming from the cab. He whistles as he pauses to root his flashlight out of his duffel, shakes his head as his brother looks back at him. "You'll drain the battery," he cautions. "Shift over, I'll take a look."

He maneuvers himself into the cabin as Sam sidles past him with a doubtful huff.

"Maybe we should have borrowed a proper boat."

Dean is already on his knees between the front seats, and he waggles his eyebrows up at his brother. "We calling sneaking out in the middle of the night and hot-wiring the nearest set of wheels _borrowing_ now?"

Tightlipped, Sam snaps, "Bobby's going to be really pissed we didn't wait for him, Dean. Mira too. Jesus, I don't even want to think about that."

Dean ignores the crestfallen expression, smirks, "You're whipped."

Sam doesn't take the bait, just fixes Dean with a hard look. "Are you sure about this?"

"Nope," Dean parries. He isn't, no point in denying it, but he isn't giving into his own niggling qualms about this messy, _bad_ plan, because he knows that if he takes that sharp right into doubt, the next left will steer him into jitters and from there, it's a one-way street to anxiety and a new-build smack bang in the center of _turn-the-fuck-back-right-the-fuck-now_. "But I am sure it's our fight, not theirs," he continues, with a totally faked confidence he hopes is convincing. "And I don't want any more blood on our hands."

He turns back to the job at hand, hooks up the engine cover, and crouches to squint down at where the flashlight beam illuminates the mechanics. "Anyway, this thing's perfect," he backtracks. "It might save us a hike when we get there. And it's a Chevy engine, I know them like the back of my hand."

He hears a sharp snort from above.

"It's a Chevy engine from the fifties, Dean. Even you said we were pushing it to keep her at four knots, especially towing the barge." The passenger seat creaks as Sam slumps down on to it. "This is the second time we've broken down, and if you can't fix it we could be stuck out here for days."

"Barge is handy for storing demons," Dean reminds him brightly. "And there's a sail isn't there? It's jerry-rigged, but it's something."

Unimpressed, Sam responds, "To use a sail you need wind. And there's nothing, not even a breeze. Not for the last half-day at least. So like I said, if you can't get this crate moving again, we're stuck."

Sam’s face is worn and tired, and if he's honest, Dean knows his brother's moroseness has been gradually increasing since they snuck out of Hanga Roa. He tries to lighten the mood anyway. "As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," he mocks gently.

It has something of the desired result, as Sam's lips curl into a reluctant grin, and Dean smiles himself at the memory of endlessly repeating the verses to his enthralled kid brother in so many roach motels across the lower forty-eight, while their dad slept it off in the other bed. "I fear thy skinny hand," he hisses theatrically, and he winks, but he knows Sam well enough to know there's more to this than the risk of being adrift out here on the endless sea. "Come on, what's up?" he prods.

"You mean besides the almost certain death?" Sam taps agitated fingers on his thigh. "It's just." He stops, seems to consider whatever is bothering him before he meets Dean's eyes. "I've been thinking. About how all this crap never ends, no matter what we do."

Dean sucks back the _you think too much_ that's poised to race off his tongue, pulls up from the nook he's crowded into, and reaches under the seat his brother is sitting on for the box of rusty tools stowed there. "Lucky they keep these on board," he evades weakly as he brandishes a wrench.

"Or a great big red flag to the fact this piece of junk will probably start sinking any minute," Sam bats back, and he sneaks a dark look at Dean, mutinous mixed with smug. It's the look he gets when he's needling purposefully, pushing Dean to make the kind of explosive accusation that always leads to locked horns, grim stares and the usual sullen silence Dean can never stand too long before he's grabbing the car keys and hitting the nearest bar. But there's no bar in sight and Dean's hip flask is empty, and maybe he's developed more patience since his year of faux fatherhood.

Or maybe it's just resignation.

Still, Dean tries again. "Why don't you find something to do? Cards are in my pack, play a couple of rounds with Cas. It'll take your mind off things." He stops, rethinks. "Don't play him for money though, he'll clean you out."

Sam makes an unidentifiable hitching sound, followed by a sudden fist he slams into the dash.

Resignation it is then. "Okay, spit it out," Dean answers, and he braces himself.

"None of it meant anything," Sam says harshly, and he doesn't meet Dean's stare. "What I did. Lucifer. Adam. The Cage, Hell, all those years. Pain, misery, bad dreams, hallucinations…you and me both. And it stopped nothing. It achieved nothing." His voice goes tight and breathless, and he bites the tirade back inside himself for a moment, then shakes his head slowly. "I'm sorry," he mutters. "It's just that the more I think about it, the more I realize it was meaningless, all of it. All that suffering, and we're back at square one."

Dean isn't going to deny he has thought like that himself, has laid there in the dark and felt so damned helpless as he rails against that vicious bitch called fate, and he knows Sam will probably see through it if he does. He has to clear his throat before he replies. "I don't know what to tell you, Sam," he offers carefully. "Except what I tell myself."

He rolls over onto his butt, rubs his fingers along his jaw, thinks for a moment of Michael, of the archangel's righteousness and conviction. "Michael didn't get his best tux," he says softly. "And you fought back. And it does mean something. It means something because we're here, and all of this…" He motions his head up and around them. "All of this is still here. And you can tell yourself we achieved nothing, and that it wasn't worth it, but it was. Because yeah, we could have stopped it properly first time around. If I’d suited up, and we had wasted this planet to ashes between us. Between _them_." He cocks his head, raises an eyebrow. "You think that would have been an achievement?"

Sam watches him for a long moment, and his grim expression softens, his tension draining away as his shoulders unhunch and drop down a few inches.

Dean reaches out, pats his brother's shin. "It was worth it," he reiterates. "And we're not dying this time, none of us."

He twists his head around then, looks over at Castiel, standing up now and facing the other way. The angel is studiously ignoring them as he reaches for the sky and arches his back to work out the kinks, much as Dean had done just a few minutes before. The movement is carelessly sensual, zings deliciously through Dean's balls, giving him a giddy feeling of elation and longing. "You have Mira," he continues, as he casts his eyes back up at Sam. "I have him," he concedes through a half-grin. "That has to mean something, huh? After everything?"

Sam's expression has gone amused and knowing. " _You're_ whipped," he jeers mildly, knocking Dean's boot with his own. "Dude, you REO Speed-Foreignered him."

"I'm happy," Dean answers simply, and he shrugs awkwardly around the feeling of tightness in his chest. "I'm happy, Sam." And Jesus, it's too much, and even if he's well aware Sam knows Castiel is _it_ for him, Dean has to break the mood before he spills any more of this chick-flick crap the way he already has to Castiel. "He completes me," he adds with a smirk, tearing his eyes away before his brother sees even more than he already has and folding himself back down into his workspace to get his mind back on the job. He breathes in oil, his eyes sharp as they range across the rods, belts and pistons that work the propeller. "And, are we there yet?" he repeats, as he uses his forefinger to snag an errant valve and ram it back into what he guesses is its slot.

"We're in the ballpark, have been for an hour or so. I didn't want to wake you guys." Sam pats the outline of his phone, tucked away in his hip pocket, goes on, "I took pictures of you slobbering all over each other at the asscrack of dawn." He pauses, curls his lips into a sly smile. "Or maybe it was the asscrack of Dean. It was sweet."

Dean snorts balefully as he pushes himself up to sit again. "Whatever. Anyhoo, that should do it."

Sam is rustling the map open, folds it out on the console and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he looks ahead, through the windshield. "You think it'll just appear or something?" he wonders. "Only I don't see anything."

Dean's gaze has flicked over to where the shabby sports duffel they're using to tote some of the older, more battered weaponry is stowed in the corner of the small cabin. "Don't these places always just loom up out of the mist?" he suggests, as he leans across to snag the bag and pull it up close.

"I don't see any mist either," Sam reports, as Dean unzips the bag and pokes through their jumbled assortment of borrowed ordnance until his hand falls on the burlap sacking in which Eloni Nam'ulu reverently wrapped the sword and the chalice.

He lifts it out and places it on the deck, unfolds the thick cloth, and eyes the neat script that covers it, incantations translated from the carved stone tablets at Lagi and inscribed into a rough-cut yard of fabric from the ancient Temple of Malama itself _to appease the gods_ for taking the chalice, according to Eloni. There are protective sigils too, sigils that will conceal the presence of the relics should R'lyeh be home to any more of the undead warriors that guarded the lost city on Tu'ugamau.

"Have you practiced it today?"

Dean glances up to see that Sam is looking down at him and wearing a smug expression. His brother has a paper copy of the ritual proper, carefully crafted by Eloni using a combination of the Lagi text and runes from _The Necronomicon_ , and Sam has been studying it diligently, lips moving as he imprints it on his brain. But _fuck_ , Dean never has been able to memorize the haphazard syntax and prosody of spellwork with the same ease, and he scowls at the reminder. "You know me and all that bell, book, and candle crap," he mutters. "I'll write it on my hand when we get there."

Sam grins. "And yet you can remember the Ancient Mariner and any number of sappy REO Speed-Foreigner songs. Maybe you're a poet at heart."

Dean grunts dismissively, turns back to the treasures. He runs a fingertip along the ornate hilt of the sword, grasps it and raises its tarnished, age-weathered blade up in front of him, testing its weight. "The Michael sword," he marvels as he studies the sigil, so like Castiel's own Enochian C, engraved just below the cross guard. The reference takes Dean back to John Winchester's lock-up, and the cunning, self-satisfied smirk on Zachariah's face when he laid their destiny out for them. He shivers at the memory, pushes it down, focuses instead on the buzz that seems to run from the ancient metal through into his palm, as if the weapon is purring contentment at him. "This is going to work," he pledges quietly.

"We just don't know how."

Sam is still looking down at him when Dean casts his eyes up, and he gives a half-shrug. "Face it, Dean, we're flying blind through heavy fog with no instruments," he says, his voice gone as somber as it sounded a few minutes before as he motions out and ahead of them. "There's no magical island, just open water in every direction. We have the chalice from the palace, and a sword that's so old it'll probably snap if we stick it in anything that isn't butter. And we have a spell we patched together from some prehistoric carvings and _The Necronomicon_ , a book most people think is fiction because it _is_ fiction."

Dean pulls a smirk from his repertoire. "But the pellet with the poison's in the chalice from the palace."

His brother's stare is flat and relentless. "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon, Dean. The chalice from the palace holds the brew that is true."

"Same difference," Dean challenges. "Better even." He pauses a moment and thinks on it, continues, "Who'd have thunk demon blood would ever be the brew that is true…" He trails off at his brother's glower, clears his throat and detours away from that point of contention to something way more neutral. "Man, you used to love that movie. Pastor Jim had to play the video twenty-four-seven that summer."

He reaches for the engraved cup and lifts it aloft as if he's making a toast. "To the brew that is true," he declares, but in the time it takes for him to do it, his brother's expression changes to something honest and soft, something a little sad.

"Everything Eloni said was guesstimate, Dean," Sam says.

There is an underlying doubt in the words, and it clicks with Dean, the reason why Sam didn't rouse them, left him _slobbering_ over Castiel. As it dawns on him, he feels his cheeks heat a little at the remembered indiscretion of whispered lust and want, of earnest promises, of the feverish, surreptitious trail of lips over skin and clumsy hands in the dark, stifled gasps and needy moans passing from mouth to mouth under cover of the engine noise, while they thought Sam had his eyes glued to the sea ahead of them. While they thought they still had time, because Dean knows his desperation to taste, and feel, and give, and his need to _tell_ Castiel everything, was borne of his unspoken fear of losing what they've found, losing each other; and he thinks the angel's muted frenzy as he returned it all in kind came from Castiel's own anxiety.

And now here is the proof that his brother might think there isn't a fix for this mess, and Dean comes back with a challenge. "You seemed to be buying what she was selling at top dollar back in Pukao," he says, a little belligerently, and he keeps going before Sam can respond. "And we're out here, so maybe we just start the ritual if we're at the right spot? Maybe that's enough." He disregards the skepticism that still marks his brother's expression, nods over at the propane stove bolted to the cabin wall. "Coffee and biscuits first though."

He wraps the artifacts up again, wedges them back into the bag before maneuvering onto his knees and glancing aft again to see that Castiel is leaning on the corner of the stern and gazing out at the horizon. The sky is cloudless, the sun is already scorching, and the world is motionless and tranquil around them now the engine is stilled, apart from the occasional drumming of demon heels from the cabin underneath the barge. As he gets his foot underneath him and rises to a stand, Dean wonders idly if Meg ever gets tired.

"You think that's safe for him?" Sam queries dubiously out of nowhere, pointing past Dean. "After what happened on the beach back at Eloni's place?"

Dean follows his brother's gesture to see Castiel executing a perfect dive off the side of the craft and into the sea, and no, he damn well doesn't think that's safe. He's already cursing under his breath and striding towards the stern when Castiel's hands appear, followed by his face as he heaves himself up. He shakes his head like a dog shaking off the rain, and swipes his hair away from his eyes before he speaks.

"The soap."

"Say what?" Dean barks back in confusion. "What the hell are you doing?"

Castiel frowns. "I'm washing. I smell." He pauses a beat. "So do you."

It's pointed enough that Dean lifts his arm and inhales, and he finds himself wrinkling his nose at the rank stink of his own sweat. Sluicing down with a bucket of brine not really doing it, he acknowledges inwardly, and he's uncomfortably aware of the tacky feeling in his boxers. It doesn't seem like this is one of Castiel's fugues, so maybe he can let his guard down, and Castiel is bright-eyed as he blinks up at Dean, his eyelashes spiked black and his cheeks glistening prettily with crystalline droplets of water, so that Dean finds himself wondering what it might be like to lick that off there.

He looks back at his brother, says, "I might take a dip myself," ignoring the way his inner voice accuses him of procrastinating when there are better things to do, like go down in flames with his family beside him.

"There could be sharks," Sam warns, but he's already pointing his nose in the direction of his own armpit and wincing.

"Then I pity the sharks," Dean retorts, and he grins at the picture that pops up in his head. "Imagine Cas taking on a great white. It'd be better than Jaws."

Sam grunts. "Nearly drowning back in Paraty doesn't seem to have bothered him, that's for sure. Look at him."

The mental rewind to Castiel's slack, lifeless features as Harper worked on him makes Dean feel a little sick. He shakes it out of his mind, looks back to see that Castiel isn't hanging on the back of the Duck any more. He's front-crawling away due east of them, arms flashing pale against the blue, his progress so smooth he barely disturbs the surface.

"Cas, wait up," Dean shouts, and as he reaches to pull his t-shirt up over his head he finds himself wondering why it has taken any of them this long to succumb to the lure of the shimmering water, big, hungry fish be damned. "Sharks only feed at dusk," he throws back at his brother reassuringly.

Right then the boat bobs, the movement energetic enough to have Dean sway and paddle the air to keep his balance. The sudden jarring is accompanied by the slopping and slapping of waves against the hull, and there's a swell getting up; Dean can see it now he's staring out over the infinite Pacific.

He marks the distant, gradual undulation of the gravity waves that have been marked by their absence since they hit the doldrums the day before, and a smaller chop too, as white crests agitate the surface nearer the Duck. And, _they've been here before_ , Dean thinks out of nowhere, on a memory of the lake he and Castiel dreamed together, the sanctuary that turned into something infinitely more threatening. The recall has him abruptly tense and apprehensive with something he doesn't want to put a name to, in case the name that fits best is foreboding. But, _is it a monster?_ he had asked in the dream, and even though he tries to tamp down his rising worry, his hands are shaking slightly as he puts any thought of a swim out of his head and pulls his t-shirt back on.

The boat shimmies a little as the waves grow stronger, but Dean fixes his eyes to Castiel again, still cutting away from them through the water, his dark head getting harder to see. Dean cups his mouth, hollers his friend's name.

Behind him Sam's response is sharp and quick. "Everything okay? Dean?"

And no it isn't, because _it's always water_ , hadn't Castiel said that, and suddenly there is a shriek of wind that blasts cold against Dean's neck, and a shadow across the sun. He glances up to see a pall of something in the Heavens, he doesn't know what, not cloud, not smoke, not smog; more like a bruise spreading across the blue. It isn't right, he knows, it's evil hemorrhaging into the skin of the world from somewhere, and he has a _fuckin' bad_ , no strike that, _horrified_ feeling about this. "Start her up and bring her around," he hollers, and he crashes the side of his fist down on the edge of the boat as the motor rasps impotently for what feels like an eternity, before she finally cranks into life and they come about too damn slowly.

Dean twists, sways up the deck towards the cabin as they pitch aggressively. "Can you see him?" he demands frantically, over the sound of the engine and the increasing moan of the wind. He squints out ahead to see that the calm ocean into which Castiel dived less than two minutes before is white stripes of froth and bubble coming at them in sequence. More breakers are stacking up near the horizon, forming an energetic corduroy swell Dean has only ever seen surfing off of Hawaii.

Sam's eyes are wide, scanning the water efficiently, and he points. "There…is that him?"

Castiel is a black spot, impossibly small because the sea has turned into rapids, its surface bubbling like there are hot coals heating it to a boil, its azure sparkle gone murky and forbidding and its peaks a soapy lather. "Cas," Dean hears himself yelp out, high-pitched and terrified, because something is coming, and he doesn't know how or why he knows it, but he does. "Fuck. Faster, we need to go faster. _Fuck_."

He staggers back out from the cabin into a squall of rain that drenches him, and a sudden, violent list sends him tumbling to the deck and sliding across it on his ass as the Duck crests a huge wave and drops down into its trough. As he flounders to get upright, water crashes down over Dean and he slips and slithers his way back to the side of the craft on his hands and knees, groping to anchor himself on one of the cleats that line the top edge of the superstructure. As the barge lurches up behind them, Dean finds his eye is suddenly caught by the bench he'd been lying on, and he sends a brief thanks out to whoever lashed the fuel tanks securely in place before he cranes his neck back to the cabin where Sam is hunched over, wrestling with the wheel.

Dean yells his brother's name as the Duck mounts another peak, but there's no reaction; his call is snatched away, lost in the howl of the wind and the roar of the angry, unpredictable sea. He hauls up onto unsteady legs, shivering in the freezing draft, and _perfect storm_ , he thinks abstractedly, because in the minute when he was flat to the boards a whirlpool has spun itself into life and they are in the middle of a slate-gray vortex that churns and heaves malevolently, its walls looming steeply, ten or fifteen feet high. _Cas_ , Dean thinks through his growing nausea. _Jesus._ And then his feet are knocked out from under him again and he's flying through mist and fog, and then falling down, _down_ , to belly-flop painfully against the surface of the water before plunging into its chilly depths.

Dean breathes reflexively, feels his face explode, feels the water snake lovingly into his lungs, feels the chest-crushing pressure of it, _no_ , for just a second before it turns into something velvet-soft and welcoming, like it did after Castiel's grip on him loosened in the submerged crypt under the church in Paraty. Dean is drowning, and just like then he's past caring about it, and he relaxes into the peace and quiet of his own death.

The world switches off just as he feels his feet hit solid ground, and his last thought is how it makes no sense that he's traveling upwards again.

The beat-beat-beat of the tom-toms in his skull, and the drip-drip-drip of the water on his brow rouse Sam from his stupor only gradually. He doesn't open his eyes for a while after he becomes aware, just kids himself that it's his choice to lie there while the sun warms him, its red glow turning the insides of his eyelids into a tropical sunset.

_Banging, rat-a-tat-tat, knock on wood_.

Woodpecker, Sam muses, not tom-toms at all. It's one of those acorn woodpeckers that populate the forests here, and any minute now he'll hear the chuckle of its call, and if he cracks his eyes he might even see the flash of its bright red cap in the timberline bordering the beach. Because that's where he is – on the beach, not crumpled up against something hard while his head throbs and his salt-crusted clothes go from saturated to clammy to tacky as they dry on him. He's on the beach, because Jessica hauled him out of bed this morning and drove them to San Gregorio, and if he peels open his eyes, he'll see her shell-seeking while he catnaps. Only no, it isn't Jessica at all, because the tumble of hair is dark. It's Mira, and she's about to tear him, his brother and his de facto brother-in-law new and ragged ones for sneaking off on this kamikaze mission by themselves, and the distant rat-a-tat-tat isn't Woody Woodpecker at all, it's Meg's heels clattering on the hull of the barge, and—

"Fuck," Sam croaks. "Dean. Cas. _Fuck_."

He shoots bolt upright, snapping his eyes open in-the-nick-of, before his brow crashes into the seat he last remembers sitting on as he wrestled for control of the Duck. He winces as his head swims and his vision blurs, and he flops himself over into a crouch, hand flying up to his mouth as his stomach gyrates crazily. After deep-breathing for a full two minutes, he's fairly sure his guts aren't about to turn themselves inside out, and he straightens up onto his knees, turns his head as fast as he's able to without his brains leaking out his ears.

No one.

He's alone on the boat as far as he can see, and as his eyes scan beyond it he feels his jaw go slack. "Land-ho," he murmurs, and for a moment he forgets that he should be looking for his brother and his friend. He hauls himself to his feet, staggers across the deck and gazes at something that isn't possible even if they did come here looking for it, because it should be open sea he's staring at. Because it _was_ open sea.

Only now it isn't.

Skull Island.

That's what it resembles, and Sam tracks his eyes up the rocky edifice at what he guesses is its center. It's some way off, rising above the treetops and wreathed in mist, its granite heights scored and deformed, its craggy brows drawn down into a glare. It looks unsettlingly similar to what Castiel described seeing in California, and Sam is hypnotized by it for a moment, can't tear his eyes away until another fusillade of annoyed drumming breaks out from the barge. He jolts back to himself and leans forward to holler his brother's name.

The silence that follows his call is deafening.

_But it's okay_ , Sam tells himself, even though his stomach is curling and looping itself into a tight double knot. Dean is a strong swimmer, and this place came up from underneath them. "Probably looking for me," he reassures himself out loud, because maybe hearing the words outside of his head might make them more convincing. "Cas too."

Even though Sam was out cold for how long he doesn't know, because when he looks at his wristwatch it has stopped, it turns out he made a good job of parking the Duck. It's upright, resting on what appears to be a reef covered by about a foot of crystal-clear water in which some of their belongings are floating. Behind the barge by about twenty-five yards is the deeper blue of the sea, looking like polished glass again, no sign of the storm that whipped it to a frenzy however long ago. Ahead is swampland and forest. It's not unlike the Everglades, with banks of reeds and sedge, and gnarled trees bordering the space on all sides, their canopy thick and lush. Steam is rising up off the vegetation, bringing with it a fetid, ancient smell, and the humidity is sultry and cloying.

Sam clambers up and over the side of the Duck, sploshes down, and leans over to snag his backpack from where it sits, partly submerged. He tosses it into the Duck, wades over to the left, where what looks like one of Castiel's boots is drifting, and overarms that back into their vehicle too. He scrubs his hair out of his eyes, studies the wetland up to the shingled transition that leads to the trees. There's a bundle of clothes where his eye falls, piled messily on a tangled mass of tree roots. It makes Sam think briefly and ruefully of how the boat was tossed about like they were whitewater rafting down Rogue River, and how their gear must be so much flotsam on the tide.

_But it isn't flotsam at all_ , he realizes a beat later.

He experiences a moment of pristine distress as he launches himself into a run, tripping halfway there and falling to his knees in the marshy shallows, feeling jagged coral graze him through his jeans before he's up and stumbling across the reef again. "Dean," he barks, as he flips his brother's limp body over. And, "No…" he breathes, because he has seen that same slackness of muscle, that same half-lidded, vacant stare before, in New Harmony.

Sam spares a second to scope their surroundings again, can't see Castiel anywhere, but he bellows out the angel's name anyway as he folds himself over and holds his face a millimeter above his brother's parted lips. Is he imagining the puff of cool air that brushes across his cheek?

"I swear to God, Dean, I will CPR you with tongue if you don't snap out of it," he grates out, and he pulls the limp body over onto its side and brings the flat of his hand down hard between his brother's shoulder blades, once, twice, and _thank Christ_ , he thinks, when Dean surges violently to consciousness, arms jerking up off the sand as he coughs, and gasps, and sucks in air.

"Gn be sick," Dean chokes out between hacks, and he retches sloppily, before shaking his head and shuddering. His eyes widen then, as he sees that he's on land, his fingers digging into wet, sandy loam. He's surprisingly alert when he glances up at Sam and then beyond. He flips over onto his butt, swivels to look the other way and behind him, says, "Cas…" in a raw, anxious tone of voice that has Sam reaching to clamp his hand around his brother's bicep.

"We'll find him."

Sam threads his hand under Dean's arm then, helps him up onto wobbly legs as he rises himself. "He'll be fine, Dean," he states firmly, at the same time as the disquieting memory of hauling Castiel up out of the flooded vault in Paraty nags at him. He tries to disregard the fact that Castiel isn't as impervious to damage as he once was, that he might have drowned out there like before, with no one to bring him back this time. Disguising his worry as best he can, he adds, "Okay? We'll find him. We'll go look after we take five, assess the damage."

Dean stares at him like he's stunned, and then a line appears between his brows and his eyes go a little thoughtful as he walks his hand up his chest to his shoulder, fitting his palm to the handprint under his t-shirt. "He's close by, I think," he mutters distractedly, before focusing on Sam. He frowns, floats a finger up to point at Sam's head. "You're bleeding," he says, almost accusingly.

"I am?" That accounts for the dull ache in his temple then, and Sam's fingertips come way splotched red when he pats them gently above his right eye.

"First aid kit," Dean decides, and between coughs, he starts shepherding Sam over towards the Duck, stumbling and tripping through the water.

Sam lets himself be herded, knows it'll ground his brother and help him think. Sure enough, once Dean is applying butterfly stitches to the region above Sam's eye, his voice takes on a more confident note.

"He was swimming east. We'll get this thing going, see how far we can take her." Dean fixes his eyes on the mountain in the distance, voices Sam's own conclusion when he studied it earlier. "Cas said he came to lying on a mountain when he fell through that rift in Cali."

Sam glances around them skeptically. "He didn't say anything about trees. This whole place is like some nightmare jungle rainforest straight out of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I doubt we'll get far." _Even if we can get this bucket moving_ , he thinks despondently.

"Well, we'll light out on foot if we get stuck," Dean announces, and then, as if he read Sam's mind, he adds, "She'll start. Trust me." He exhales slowly, his eyes going narrow. "The way this place rose up out of nowhere just like that…you think Coolio can sense we've got his False Prophet?"

As if on cue, muffled clattering starts up. _Meg_ , and Dean grimaces before casting his gaze around them critically, much as Sam had done. "We should stay frosty. There's no telling what might be here…zombies, fish-guys." He sucks in disgustedly. "Place came from under the water, it's probably fish-guy central." His voice fades away a little at the end, and his hand drifts up to rub at his scar again, so gradually Sam wonders if he even realizes he's doing it.

"Are you getting an itch?" Sam points at his brother's shoulder, tents his brows at the absent expression he gets in return. "Your spidey sense," he airquotes. "You said that in Purgatory you could sense he was close by because the handprint bothered you."

"Maybe…"

It's murmured out, barely attentive even, but actions always have spoken louder than words where Dean is concerned and the way he spins and strides up to the front of the Duck to plant himself in the driver's seat is decisive. He throws a triumphant wink back over his shoulder at Sam as the engine cranks to life with moderate willingness, slams the Duck into gear, and heads for the beach, water slop-swirling around them.

The Duck breaches the treeline with the crunch of tires on gravel and the whip-crack-away of snapping roots and branches, rocking from side to side as she forces her way through, barge in tow. Sam slides his way into shotgun, has to grip onto the door handle to stay in his seat as they jounce along.

Even just a few yards in, it's primordial, an overgrown, untouched wilderness thicker even than anything they hacked their way through on Tu'ugamau. Green-blue and purple-black colored trees soar up and in to meet each other and entwine, so that the forest forms a ceiling over their heads, and vines and hunks of curly moss are hanging down like the place put on its best bling for their visit. Everywhere there is the drip of water, vapor rising up, and the stench of the place is ancient and rotten, as if they're traversing the decaying corpse of some long-dead land. Sam supposes that in a way they are. He covers his nose, asks, "Was Purgatory anything like this?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nope. More like a Men Without Hats video." He blanches as he speaks, motions with his head. "Look at that."

Sam follows his brother's gesture to see a cluster of lurid-colored blooms, each one the size of his head. As the Duck grinds past, the huge flowers cant to follow them, leaning eagerly inwards, and when he peers inside them Sam can see the blossoms are equipped with phallic-looking stamens that whip about inside their petal shields, splashing clouds of yellow dust.

"That's either totally awesome or fuckin' disgusting," Dean decides, as he fumbles about on the dash to start the windshield wipers. "It better not be sex pollen." He shudders at Sam's look, continues, "Only cartoon jungles look like this. Cursed ones, not enchanted ones. Place is like something out of Disney meets Day of the Triffids. Fuckin' creepy."

That's no lie, and the silence is eerie too, thick and palpable. But even if Sam expects to see eyes in the shadows, there are no sounds of life in the core of this forest, nothing but the noise they make as they travel, no obvious presence here except for them. It's alive but dead, in stasis; and age looms in about them in the shape of these primeval trees keeping vigil as they wait. _Perhaps this is what they've been waiting for_ , Sam thinks, and the possibility is chilling.

He has scarcely completed the thought when his brother's hand flies up to his shoulder and he lets out a small sound. They judder to a halt and then Dean is gone, moving way faster than a man who just nearly drowned for the second time in a week has any right to, vaulting over the side of the Duck. Sam can barely track him, and swinging his head around to try has the receding ache from earlier slamming enthusiastically back into the side of his skull again, but he spots Dean's target straightaway.

Castiel is sitting on a tree root to their left, staring up and swaying a little. His perch is set back in the trees, hardly visible, and if it weren't for the odd psychic, or bodily, or whatever it is, feedback loop he has with Dean, Sam doesn't doubt they would have driven past without seeing him. He opens his door, hops down to the spongy ground and picks his way around to where his brother is already squatting in front of their friend.

Dean is talking steadily, low and serious, soothing almost. His hand is on Castiel's face, tilting the angel's head so he's looking right at Dean, and his thumb is moving carefully along Castiel's cheekbone. For all that he shies away from public displays of affection, the back-forth of Dean's thumb is tender, and his face is as close to Castiel's as a lover's would be, because that's what they are, Sam thinks; lovers, in love with each other. He hasn't ever thought of it in quite those terms and now he does the realization is almost visceral, and there is the sudden fleeting awareness that Dean and Castiel do this in the dark, alone, legs braided together and hands stroking skin, whispering to each other, things Sam will never know or share in. He caught a glimpse of them himself, last night, while he nursed the Duck along through the still waters. It makes him think of Mira again, and his heart does a little dance in his chest. _She's the one_ , and he will tell his brother as soon as they are out of here, tell her the next time he sees her, because he _will_ see her again, and he makes that pledge to himself vehemently.

"He's out of it," Dean says shortly as Sam hovers there behind him, and sure enough Castiel's gaze is fixed in a thousand-yard stare that sees nothing, and he's mumbling softly, slurring snatches of words like a mantra.

"Is that…?" Sam trails off as Dean nods.

"Yep, the same." Dean snaps his fingers loudly in front of Castiel's face. "Come on, Cas, come back to me, man." The angel doesn't react, doesn't even blink, and Dean exhales sharply, his expression tense and worried. "When this happened in La Grange he said it was the darkness pulling at him," he tells Sam. "The darkness at the center of the world."

_As if the place wasn't malevolent enough_ , Sam thinks, and he tugs his borrowed Taurus out of the back of his jeans as his brother grips Castiel's wrist and brings the angel's hand up to press it to his shoulder, where his scar is.

Dean looks up at Sam as he spreads his other hand on Castiel's bare chest, fitting his fingers to the handprint he left there, and he shrugs self-consciously. "It helped one time before."

It takes maybe ten minutes of smalltalk, nonsense, curt orders followed by apologetic pleading and the odd whispered, heartfelt endearment Sam can see tint his brother's cheeks red, before Castiel's eyes start to wander and go hazy. From then it's another moment or two until he frowns and blinks hard.

"The dreamer has stopped sleeping," he says, as matter-of-factly as if he's telling them what day of the week it is.

There's a moment of naked relief on Dean's face before he catches himself. "We're glad you're here to tell us these things," he quips, and he slaps the angel's cheek lightly. "Can you get up?"

Castiel looks a little affronted for a few seconds. "Of course I can. Why would I not?" Then, as his eyes drift away from Dean and around them, he looks bemused. "Have we arrived?"

"Something like that," Dean tells him as he pushes up. "We're guessing Coolio sensed we have his wingdemon."

"Where's my t-shirt?" Castiel asks, staring down at himself with a mystified expression on his face. "And my boots?"

"You left in a hurry." Dean rubs his fingers at the nape of his neck as he turns to study the Duck, and Sam can see his brother's thought process pass across his face, schemes and strategies that have him chewing his lip, sighing, and scowling all in the space of a moment as Castiel rises to stand at Sam's elbow.

"Do you remember anything at all?" Sam asks him, and Castiel throws up a hand in a gesture that speaks of continuing bewilderment. "You don't remember diving off the boat?" Sam prompts. "Asking for the soap to get cleaned up?"

Castiel frowns and then gets another faraway look in his eyes before he snaps back to Sam. "Yes…I remember being in the water, waiting for Dean, and then I just had to swim away. I couldn't resist the urge, it was—"

"Calling you?" Dean is fierce and fox-eyed as he turns his attention to Castiel. "Pulling at you, like before? Is it pulling you now? When it pulled you back in La Grange, you said you thought there was a path there – are there paths here too?" He looks around him a little wildly as he speaks, and when he focuses back on Sam, his jaw is set tight even if his eyes are stark with anxiety. "We're doing this now."

Caught on his back foot, Sam is rooted to the spot for a moment as Dean stomps back towards the Duck almost angrily, and, _too fast_ , Sam is thinking, as he swivels his head around them, mentally calculating their survival odds if a rift like his brother described seeing and rappelling down in California were to split the ground under the Duck. "Are there paths here?" he mutters uneasily to Castiel.

"Kali said they were everywhere," the angel replies, and he shrugs in a haphazard sort of way that isn't at all confidence-inspiring. "Since this is Cthulhu's realm, I don't doubt they are here too, all around us."

"Well, can you sense them?" Sam pushes. "Map them, maybe?" He doesn't wait for the answering apologetic headshake to complete before he jogs after his brother.

Dean is buckling on a thigh holster, has the larger bag of weapons he set aside as being slightly more likely to fire without exploding in their faces gaping open, and he nods over towards the barge as Sam climbs into the cabin, Castiel in tow.

"We got a False Prophet to gank, let's get this party st—"

"We can't do it here," Sam cuts in quickly, as he uses his foot to hook the sports bag out from under the shotgun seat, where it slid as they were buffeted by the sea. He squats to zip it, looking up and going on before Dean can protest. "Cas says there could be cracks everywhere, like the one in California – if shit happens when we do this, and he has to use up the mojo for any reason…" He stops, waits for Dean to clue in himself, and it only takes a second or two for his brother to catch up.

"This crate could be the only thing between us and a long swim."

"Yep," Sam nods. "A long swim with some big fish. So we don't want it falling down a great big hole in the ground."

Irritation, acceptance, anxiety and more irritation flit across Dean's face, and he barks out a harsh, "Fuckdammit," dips his face in his hand, and worries at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "But if shit happens, this is the only place that's defensible," he says finally.

"Not if it's in a rift like the one in California," Castiel confirms placidly from behind Sam, where he's lacing his boots. "And not if that rift is under this ocean. Your brother is right, Dean, we should do this a safe distance away. And then run extremely fast…if shit happens."

Dean makes a rueful huff at that as he comes out from behind his hand. "Okay, we need to turn the Duck around, get it pointed the right way to get us out of here quick if needs be," he concedes, and then his tone switches to complete authority that brooks no argument so firmly Sam fancies that it sounds like his brother's word is _law_ in these parts.

"And if we're going for a hike, you need to stick close, Cas. I damn well mean it…even if you need to take a piss, you do it where we can see you. And if anything starts calling you, _pulling_ you, if you're being guided by voices, you tell us. Do I make myself clear?" Dean's eyes widen then, and his voice goes quieter and meaningful, like Sam isn't even there. "Nothing is taking you away from me. Not again."

Duct tape.

Dean can wax lyrical on all the glorious wonders of duct tape if he's caught in a bar on the right night, and in the right mood, brought to the viewing public by his favorite sponsors, Jack, Jim and Johnny. And he knows that if Sam were in a talkative mood, he could feed anybody a whole bunch of trivia about duct tape. He'd explain that 1942 was the year of duct tape, and that not long after this pressure-sensitive tape made from polyethylene was born it was being utilized in World War II to fix everything from bullets to bombs. Castiel thinks it's great for making wallets, and that makes Dean smile.

Right now, pondering the origins and versatility of duct tape seems an incongruous pastime as they march steadily through the lush vegetation in the tropical jungle Team Free Will and company find themselves in. Even so, Dean smiles in what he knows is a self-satisfied sort of way as he muses on the specific purpose he likes to use it for that goes beyond car repair.

"Ahhh-maaa-thaa."

"Sam, I think she just called us motherfuckers," Dean points out, staring across at Meg as she stumbles along between them, and his brother briefly pauses from scything through the vegetation ahead of them with his machete, turns his head, and sends a withering look Dean's way.

Dean ignores him. "Silence is golden," he taunts the demon. "Duct tape is silver."

Meg glares back at Dean, her navy-blue eyes looking too-human, and it occurs to him that in another life and under a different set of circumstances, Meg would have been exactly the kind of girl he'd go for a tumble in the hay with, dark and intriguing as she is. Now that only sends his thoughts straight back to the man who has been snaking his way beside him through the brush this last quarter-mile or so, making not a sound, as though the leaves and the vines soften for his step alone; this man he loves. Castiel is tense and alert, an M-16 cradled in the crook of his arm. His aviator shades shield his eyes against the unforgiving sun, and a line of sweat gathers at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Dean knows this because he can see the slow slide of it from the corner of his vision, and he can see it because he's watching his friend like a hawk, alert to any sign something might be _off_ with him.

"Actually," Castiel begins, "she just wishes you good luck."

Dean narrows his eyes as he studies Meg. Her biker chick get-up has backfired in the unrelenting humidity and she has the appearance of a wilting flower, dark hair plastered to her forehead in strings and hanks. Her mascara is running, and the devil's trap Dean Sharpied on her brow as an added precaution stands out in sharp, neat relief compared to her dishevelment.

Maybe, just maybe, there is an instant when Dean feels pity, not unlike the confused empathy he felt when he snuck up behind the meatpuppet that was once Christian Campbell, as the demon wearing him wielded its blade just like Dean once did in the Pit. And then he recalls Meg's own personal bucket list; Pastor Jim, Caleb, and he has to swallow down the lump that rises in his throat at the memory of their kindness to a mute, traumatized preschooler. Ellen, Jo, Bobby's legs, and his own brother used and abused by the demon. And that's just what they know about, but Dean is damned certain the notches on Meg's belt are too many to count.

Pity is weakness; it's time to put her out of their misery and maybe use her to do some good, and the irony of that isn't lost on Dean. "Really?" he queries shortly.

"She has only your welfare at heart, Dean," Castiel replies. "Surely you know this by now?"

Sam coughs to the side, in thinly disguised laughter.

Dean shrugs. "Hey, you never know. Stranger things have happened lately, like…oh, I don't know, apocalypses. Like how they come in pairs."

"There's no way she's going to wish us luck on feeding her to a giant inter-dimensional monster, Dean," his brother counters. "She'd sooner be a born-again Christian."

Dean snorts at that, then pulls up abruptly as they emerge from the forest into a clearing. There are ruins at its center, pitted, crumbling stone pillars strewn about messily, covered in a latticework of creeping vines, and to the right is what looks like an altar hewn from rock. Sigils and geometric shapes are carved into its sides, and flanking it are petrified wooden posts with long-rusted metal rings embedded in them. It's a sickly reminder of the stakes in Purgatory's Monster Town; of Castiel, forced to manifest and tethered there ready for torture, and the memory is appalling, cuts Dean's heart like glass and sucks the moisture from his mouth. _Never again_ , he vows inside his head, and the touch of Castiel's shoulder at his right in that same second is so necessary and fundamental to Dean now that his knees almost sag from sheer relief at the angel's presence.

"This site seems appropriate," Castiel says solemnly, and he holds Dean's gaze for a moment that tells Dean he knows exactly what Dean is thinking about.

Dean clears his throat, clips out, "Showtime," as he lets his backpack slide down off of his shoulders. "Let's do this."

Sam doesn't reply, just nods once as he puts a big hand on Meg's shoulder and pushes her almost gently to her knees before shrugging the sports bag down his arm to the ground.

They're on the brink of this, finally, and anticipation is thrumming through Dean, adrenaline flooding him now that he isn't focusing on planting one boot in front of the other and not tripping onto his ass as they march. He can't stop his mind drifting to what they're facing and dwelling uneasily on the immenseness of it; the ancient, rancid presence that seeps out of the ground and the atmosphere here and eats into him, the pulse of sheer, unmitigated evil the mountain ahead of them exudes. He has butterflies in the pit of his gut, his skin is damp under his t-shirt, and his palms are slick with sweat. "We don't know what'll happen when we start this," he says, and he doesn't like how parched-dry and apprehensive his voice sounds. "But we don't go to defcon one unless I say so. The mojo is for emergencies only, Cas…if shit hits, plan A is to run for the Duck. And no stopping, no matter what happens."

"Of course," Castiel says smoothly, and Dean knows Castiel will stop if he has to, always will, and so will Sam, even if it's the difference between living and dying here. And so will he.

He reaches to drag the sports bag away from where his brother parked it, has to force the zipper open because it's sticky with caked-on sand and salt from the storm that heralded the island's rise from its watery grave.

And the next second stretches out of all proportion, lengthening into an infinity, almost like Dean is freeze-framing his way through it one shot at a time. Over in the other corner of his brain he plays it back, the way he haphazardly wedged the fabric-wrapped artifacts back into the bag before his gaze fell on Castiel, stretching up to the sun, all sinewy strength and beauty. And as a tactical error, that moment of distraction is right up there in the pantheon.

"They're not here," he says through the bile rising in his throat, and his own disbelief makes his voice sound wrecked, makes his hands start shaking. "The sword, the cup. They're not here."

Sam is rummaging about inside his backpack, and he looks up. "That's not funny, Dean," he snaps, but there's slight note of panic in his voice.

"On the boat," Dean clarifies as he slumps down onto his butt, well aware of the cunning gleam in Meg's eyes as she glances back and forth between them all. "I didn't lock them down properly."

Sam's brow corrugates as he remembers. "That hurricane, whatever it was…we almost capsized a couple of times."

"The waves," Dean finishes for him. "They must have washed away."

Muffled cackling forces its way out from behind Meg's gag at the revelation, and _fuck that noise_. Dean gropes about inside his backpack for something he knows for sure is wedged down inside it, because he fished it out from under the seat in front of him on the prop job that flew them out of Paraty, after the kid who owned it left it behind.

"Seriously?" his brother reproves, as Dean retrieves the squirt gun and a quart-bottle of holy water Jonas Harper blessed for them.

"Yeah, seriously," Dean confirms as he carefully fills the plastic gun before aiming it at Meg. She stares at the fluorescent orange muzzle and then back at Dean, and even behind the gag he can see that she's curling her top lip up into a Presley sneer. She rolls her eyes so thoroughly it takes long seconds for the whites to go blue again.

"You're damn lucky it isn't the super-soaker with the jet pack," Dean says as he fires off a shot. The water spatters across Meg's face, and a shrill cry erupts from behind her gag as smoke follows in its wake. Her skin bubbles as she shrieks out muffled fury, and Dean shrugs at the look his brother gives him. "Don't forget what she's done to us," he retorts. "And to our friends."

Sam shakes his head, and his features relax into a disappointed expression that's almost comical as his shoulders slump. "Some of our stuff was floating in the water back on the reef, but I would have seen them if they were there," he says dispiritedly. "They're probably at the bottom of the fucking Pacific. I wonder if it's even worth…" He trails off as he pulls his hand out of his pack, holding a folded wad of sodden, dripping paper, the ritual Eloni Nam'ulu composed so carefully for them long run away into formless inky blotches. "…Doing the ritual at all," he continues faintly.

Dean finds that yes, it is possible to feel even more despondent. "I really wish she had laminated that for us," he supplies.

"Jesus Christ," is the muttered response.

Castiel clears his throat. "That's a good idea," he deadpans, in the utterly flat calm he uses when he's seriously pissed, and if he's crabby, well, Dean can't honestly blame him. "Perhaps we should all start praying for a miracle at this juncture? Since it appears we need all the help we can—"

"No, wait!" Sam jumps in.

Dean slants his eyes across, sees that Sam's face is suddenly animated, his eyes wide and calculating. It's his thinking, light bulb, _solution-pulled-out-of-his-ass_ face, and Dean could hug him for it right then.

"We use the spell, the banishing spell," Sam races out, and he's already reaching back inside his pack and pulling out a plastic bag, from which he produces his journal. "The one we used to send the souls back. I got it in here, I'm sure of it." He extricates a folded piece of paper, holds it up triumphantly. "It could work. Couldn't it?"

There's no real sense to the theory, in fact it's wildly speculative, but Dean is grabbing it and holding on like it's a lifeline. "Could it?" he asks, as Castiel reaches down to pluck the paper from between Sam's fingers.

"There are no guarantees," the angel murmurs distractedly, to a triumphant snorting sound from Meg. Castiel nudges her gently with his boot, and once he has her attention his eyes go frigid and his tone takes on a vicious edge. "Don't interrupt me, please."

"I can squirt her again," Dean offers, but Castiel doesn't answer, just frowns thoughtfully as he returns to scanning the words.

"This spell is older than I am," he announces.

Dean has no idea if that's good or bad, says, "Yeah, it's magic with a _k_ at the end," as the angel tilts his head in his usual quizzical way.

"You're sure it's the one you used the last time?"

"It's the one Death left us," Sam points out. "It stands to reason a spell that can pack a bunch of monster souls back to Purgatory has the power to send the Beast back where it came from, doesn't it?" He waits for a response, face still lit up, looks meaningfully from Castiel to Dean. "Especially if Michael is doing it?"

And suddenly the notion doesn't seem as crazed as it did, in fact it seems entirely logical, and Dean takes a deep breath and wills the tremor out of his hands as he remembers reading the words from the book in Bobby's study when he thought Castiel was lost to him. "If we have been selfish and cruel, it's you who will banish us," he breathes.

Sam nods vigorously. "Like Eloni said. Like Death said." He's confident, assured. "Michael slew the dragon, Dean. And you're the one true vessel, didn't he tell you that? Hell, Zachariah even said you were the Michael sword. So maybe we don't need the actual sword, or the cup and the ritual. Maybe we just need _you_."

The idea of it sends a thrill of excitement and a simultaneous surge of panic shivering through Dean as he glances at Castiel. "Cas?" he prods cautiously.

"The spell wasn't intended for this…" Castiel bends himself down to his haunches, fixes Dean with bright eyes, bright with hope maybe. "But old magic…" He pauses a beat, and a smile plays across his lips. "Magic with a _k_ at the end, is still magic, and the principle of the spell should hold if it is cast in the right way."

"Like chaos magick?" Sam says, and the angel nods in agreement.

That goes right over Dean's head, oscillating as he is between feeling relieved and anxious. "Care to clarify for the slow child?" he asks.

"It's the idea that the belief is what's important in a magical operation," Castiel says. "You drew this on your hand the last time, yes?" At Dean's nod, he continues, low and confidential. "The spell as you were given it dictates a certain way to use it, but when you wrote it on your hand you broke the traditional rules. Your belief created a magic of its own. We'll have to do the same in order to use this again to try to send the Beast back. So, we sacrifice the False Prophet, but it's our belief as we sacrifice her that is of utmost importance. Dean, are you listening to me?"

Throughout Castiel's explanation of spellwork and chaos magick, Dean has let his eyes drift over to watch the shape of Meg's mouth beneath the duct tape as it moves. It looks like a minnow beneath a line of silver, and he can tell she's hurling obscenities. Castiel's voice runs in the background and it sounds assured, but the more Dean thinks about it, the more he knows that despite all their research, and fact-finding, and meticulous gathering of artifacts, none of them knows what the fuck they're doing. It's always been faith, and luck, and a whole shit-load of duct tape.

"I'm enthralled," he mutters. "Continue."

"Because I can stop if this bores you," Castiel chides him, and is that his trademark fond exasperation, or is a note of testiness creeping into his voice again?

Back in the moment, Dean groans inwardly. He knows it isn't the time or place but he takes a minute to reflect on the fact that he thought they had a while to go before they reached _that_ stage of their relationship – that part where they annoy each other for no meaningful reason. And then comes the ennui. The silence, the cold dinners, the nights on the couch, and now there's the secret fear it could happen with Castiel if they live through this, _which they damn well will_ , and Dean doesn't want that.

"No, I want you to keep going, and don't stop until I say stop," Dean says, and he infuses his voice with the stern edge of command. Castiel's eyes scorch right through Dean as he responds to it, like Dean knew he would, because deep down Castiel is a soldier, always a soldier, and something about the snapped order pulls a string in him that he responds to, instinctual, sexual, magnetic.

_How do you keep a relationship from going stale?_ Dean thinks, and then has his answer – keep the interest. And how does one do that? By doing something unexpected. If Castiel were a chick, he'd buy him flowers, but Castiel's not a chick. So he'll have to do something better.

Dean's eyes fall on Meg. "You'll have to do," he says, chipper, and he turns to snatch the written spell from Castiel's hand.

"Dean, we need that—"

"Actually, Meg needs it," Dean says smartly, "and please, keep talking about chaos magick, Sam's really digging it." Which isn't so far from the truth, because Sam is sitting there with his machete in his hand, covered in plant guts and chlorophyll from bushwacking for the last thirty minutes or so, but he looks entranced. Or it could be exhaustion or concussion, Dean isn't sure.

"Chaos magick varies from individual to individual, as each one takes inspiration from many faiths…and many identify with symbols that evoke chaos, humor, or trickster archetypes…"

_Gabriel would be so pleased_ , Dean thinks, with a hollow sort of amusement, as he leans over towards Meg and catches the edge of the silver duct tape with a nail. He feels the rough scrim poking at his fingers, and meets her black eyes once with a grin.

"…Austin Osman Spare is credited with a large amount of influence…"

Dean strips the tape away in one quick motion of his wrist. Meg's lipstick is smeared in every direction, giving her a clownish appearance, but he doesn't wait to appreciate it as she sucks in a shrieking breath. Her lungs fill with it in an attempt to launch a string of insults in their direction or maybe even summon Cthulhu herself, but Dean doesn't give her the chance. He crumples the paper with the spell in his hand and shoves it into her open mouth, slapping the duct tape back over it as she gags, her eyes so narrow they form black slits in her face.

Castiel's voice is fading into the background as Dean swipes perspiration away from his brow and turns to look at his brother, who had sat opposite him in Bobby's study, tapped his temple, _it's up here_ , and smirked as he recited it all back to Dean, word-perfect.

"Play it again, Sam," he says, with a flourish that comes from nowhere, skirts perilously close to lunacy, and is partly inspired by the fear he's been tamping down since he came around, spitting salt water and with his brother's hand slamming into his upper back.

And, _mercifully_ , Castiel stops his relentless information download on the ins-and-outs of chaos magick; and even better, it appears those long motel nights watching old black-and-white movies haven't gone to waste, because he blinks and a light comes into his eyes as his mouth, the mouth Dean loves to part and explore with his tongue, makes shapes around a new, updated version of one of his favorite phrases.

"I understand that reference."

Sam shakes his head. "You're damn lucky I remember this," he reproves before he begins the spell, albeit uncertainly, and then pauses. "Wait, Dean, don't we need her blood—"

"Nope," Dean tells him, "because my belief is creating a magic of its own, right the fuck now. And so is yours, Cas's too."

Forcing a weak grin, Sam says, "Tell me, I'm begging you to tell me, that you _aren't_ going to enjoy feeding Meg to mega-monster?"

Dean awards Sam a smile he knows splits his face, then directs it at Castiel, ramping it up to eleven as he does. It's the sort of smile that turns Castiel's dial up to fever-pitch when they're alone and the angel is writhing and moaning underneath him, and the blue gaze goes laser-like in response.

"The end of the world isn't without its fringe benefits, Dean," Castiel concedes tolerantly, "but I maintain that your sense of fun is abnormally twisted."

"Me?" Dean scoffs. "I wasn't the one who suggested using a crane to feed her to Cthulhu. That was Bobby. When I called him, he said he wanted to hook her up and drop her in like he was feeding a pet snake."

He wastes no more time, yanks Meg to her feet, and she sways, dizzy and dehydrated beneath the sun and the humidity that has their clothes clinging to their backs and creeping into every uncomfortable crease of sweat-drenched skin. Dean takes brief but rewarding satisfaction in the wild look that creeps into Meg's eyes as her gaze darts from one brother to the other, and then finally settles on Castiel with a look of desperate appeal.

Castiel shrugs.

"Cue the music," Dean announces with a grin. "And don't stop believing."

At some point, Meg's knees buckle and she sinks gracelessly down to her knees on the damp, stinking jungle earth, where the broken stones of ancient relics are scattered all around them. The setting is fitting, something primal and forgotten in the air and the ground, and in the background of it all is the steady recitation of Sam's voice as he intones the rune on a loop, solitary until Castiel picks up the incantation alongside him.

The moment their voices merge the effect is alchemical, and Dean concentrates, finds that he's joining in almost reflexively, that he can recall the words in a way he wasn't able to on that long evening in Bobby's study when he repeated them to himself ad nauseum but couldn't imprint them in his brain, where they needed to be. _It's an omen_ , he thinks abstractedly, _a good one_. He fists his hands so tight he feels his nails digging into his palms, and _believes_ like he never has before, believes that he is the Michael sword and that his willpower and the words that ring out around him will be enough, while he quashes down the memory of how he believed so hard the last time but Castiel still slipped through his fingers like air and tumbled into the abyss.

Bewitched by the ritual, Meg seethes and groans behind her mask of duct tape, her eyes switching frenziedly between navy and obsidian-black as the feathers of a crow, as though fear itself has spun her demonic compass out of sync. Her fists clench and her fingers fan out as she strains against the ragged edges of rope binding her.

Dean's stomach does an uncomfortable flip as the ground suddenly vibrates and drops a few inches under his feet. _Shit is happening_ , he thinks, and the sick feeling of dread he has been holding tight to crashes through the barrier to freedom.

He stumbles back, keeps his wits about him sufficiently to hoist his backpack up onto his shoulder, reaches out with his free hand to snag the back of Sam's t-shirt and drag him along in tandem. Castiel's hand tags Dean's shirt in turn, and in a line they shuffle backwards as the shaking increases in time with their voices. Where Sam falters to keep up with the uneven convulsion of the ground, Castiel strives for more volume, pounding the ancient syllables home until Dean realizes he can perceive a radiance from the corners of his peripheral vision. Castiel is glowing like phosphorus with the force of his words, and it chills Dean with a heartstopping reminder of the last time they used this spell and why he'd be happy to never hear it again.

_This is usually when the shit hits the fan_ , Dean thinks, and he has a gut feeling that if they survive this he'll feel pissed off that he's right on the mark every damn time. In the event, they're twenty yards further back down the hacked-out trail that marks their route when a discordant whining sound starts up, accompanied by the crunch of timber splitting, the wail of trees ripping loose from their moorings, and the crack of jungle vines snapping. The cacophony of sound fills Dean's ears, deafening him for a few moments, until the shaking abruptly stops. Everything falls silent and Dean can hear the harsh, worried breathing of his companions as they stand and stare back at Meg in the center of the clearing, where she writhes in her bonds.

Sam sees it first.

"Look!" he hisses, and points.

In the darkness of the jungle brush there is a winnowing shape that Dean thinks might be a vine twirling in place, like a living tornado. There seems no end to it, no beginning either, and it moves with oiled speed, punching through fleshy leaves and crushing smaller trees beneath its rolling wake. And now it's closer, Dean can see what his brother spotted first – it's no vine. It's thick and padded on every side with membranous suction cups.

Dean makes a sound he knows he will deny making later.

The tentacle snakes towards Meg with _intent_ , a shadow that seems to gather and deepen the darkness with it, and then it bursts with speed. Leaves rip in its wake and Meg scoots back on her ass, heels digging frantically into the soil in a final desperate act to save herself.

The tentacle slaps against her ankle and she shrieks and kicks out. It loops around her calves and then tugs her back with it, to where the ground heaves and quakes, the earth splitting apart to create a dark, jagged mouth that yawns open. It drags her through as though she were no more than a hog-tied calf at a rodeo, and then the landscape stops its dance and there is an abrupt, resounding silence.

No one moves. No one breathes.

"That's it?" Sam croaks after a stretched-out moment. "It can't be that easy. At what point have we ever just done the job, gone home, had a beer and gone to bed?" He goggles at Dean, repeats, "It can't be that easy."

"Don't fuckin' hex us," Dean growls, as he smacks his brow with his open palm and hopes that it _is_ that easy, that there will be a seedy motel room, a couple of beers, and a warm, willing and rock-hard body pressed against him and moving inside him in the near future. Because why the fuck can't they just, for once, have the Big Rock Candy Mountain apocalypse? Is that too much to ask?

And sure enough it is, as the silence breaks with a distant, ominous rumbling that seems to emanate from under the ground. Dean fancies that it's like the sound of a thousand-mile long worm tunneling its way through the earth, and it sends the hair along the back of his neck standing straight up. He trades uncertain glances with his brother and his other.

Sam raises the Taurus at nothing at all, as if he does it for the comfort alone.

Castiel grimaces. "Weren't we supposed to run if shit happened?"

As the rumble dies away, there is another reverberation that strikes Dean as familiar. He gapes. "Was that a burp? Did Coolio just belch?"

"Cthulhu doesn't belch, Dean," Sam insists, without looking away from the knife-edge slash in the ground.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dean snaps back acidly, "I didn't know you graduated with a masters in monster digestion, but…"

He trails off, distracted by the sound of a scream, and then Castiel is tugging at his wrist.

"Dean, weren't we supposed to run if shit happened?" the angel echoes himself, but Dean isn't really focusing on Castiel, preoccupied as he is by the fact the scream is rising in volume, and _shouldn't that be the other way around?_ But no, apparently not, because in the next instant Meg comes cannon-balling back out of the crack into which she just vanished.

It's like a swan dive in reverse, one part comical and one part horrific, as she streaks back out with lightning speed, arcing through the air and face-planting without grace into the thick jungle leaves and grasses. She slides to a stop five feet away from where they're standing, and Dean winces at the impact, looks left of himself to see twin stupefied expressions he knows are a mirror of his own astonishment fixed on Meg as if she might explode next.

She doesn't explode.

"Apparently," Dean says, "not only does the big guy belch, but he also vomits."

Meg is covered in a viscous black gloop that looks like old motor oil, and she screams from behind her duct tape seal, eyes open wide and startlingly vivid, a ring of hazel captured in blue-gray. Dean looks down and thinks out of nowhere that he can't remember ever noticing that she had pretty eyes.

"Hey, she's got pretty eyes," Sam blurts out.

Dean looks at his brother and bites his tongue on any number of demon-lover jokes that spring to mind, as Castiel makes a perplexed huffing sound and steps closer to where Meg slumps.

"That's because she's not a demon any more," the angel says.

"What?!" Dean hears himself squawk, but Castiel doesn't spare him a glance as he crouches to his knees, grips an edge of the duct tape plastered over Meg's mouth, and rips it away with about as much ceremony as Dean had earlier. Globs of the black liquid spatter on nearby leaves and Meg heaves in a gasp that rakes down into her lungs as her bound hands reach up in imitation of prayer and catch at Castiel's sleeve.

"God," she wheezes. "God saved me. That's what happened, don't you see? Don't you get it? God gave me a second chance!"

Castiel wrenches out of the grasp of her fingers with his lips pulled back from his teeth in disgust, and Meg attempts to follow his backward pace, dragging herself after him, the haughty air and condescending manner evaporated into thin air.

It's pathetic, deeply unsettling, and it occurs to Dean that the last thing they need on this trip is civilian baggage. "Is she the host now?" he barks. "This can't be for real."

"I assure you, this is very real," Castiel tells him. "But she isn't the host. She's Meg – just not demon Meg."

"This is your fault," Dean accuses, and points to Sam.

"How is this my fault?" his brother protests, aghast.

"Just before she went in, you said she'd rather be a born-again Christian!"

Sam smacks his hand to his face, but the sound is lost in Meg's sobbing as she attempts to prostrate herself at Castiel's feet. She's reciting prayers and invoking the name of Jesus Christ on a loop, apparently in every language she knows, and Castiel stumbles back from her again. "Your prayers won't be heard," he says, with something Dean thinks sounds like desperation. "You have no soul to save. You know this."

He pulls a knife from his boot with a quick jerk of his hand, hunkers down into the thick jungle floor beside the woman, and Meg cries out in terror and struggles to cover her head. Dean can only stare at the exchange with a dual sensation of distaste and pity. This is Meg? High-riding, _get-out-the-way-imma-cut-a-bitch_ Meg? She cowers before Castiel's knife now, and the angel's face is a study in quiet agony that reminds Dean of how far Castiel has come; that he now has a full range of emotion at his disposal, and with it all the hardship of difficult decisions and the conflict they evoke. Like this one, and he's raising the knife, its blade glinting as he unexpectedly saws through Meg's duct-tape bracelet to cut her free.

"You trust her?" Sam gawks.

"No," Castiel says without emotion, as Meg tears the slashed strips of tape off her wrists in between sobs. "But I'm in no position to judge her."

Dean damn well disagrees with that, and argues the case too. "Are you serious? She's a killer…she has no soul." In his side vision, he can see the stony face his brother makes at the reference, but he plows on. "It doesn't matter if she's de-clawed, she'd kill us in a heartbeat."

But how many people Meg has or hasn't killed becomes a small and distant matter, as a new sound shakes the ground beneath their feet, and suddenly the only body count Dean is worried about is their own.

This time, the din is permanent and everywhere, like the earth has become a great drum and something is beating it with force, sending the trees shaking and the vines swinging on their limbs. It's like a boombox turned all the way up so it shakes the membranes of Dean's heart, and for once Sam is the one gripping him by the arm and hauling him backwards, yelling, "Weren't we supposed to run if shit happened?" because it's his turn to do that now.

Dean twists out of his brother's grasp, shouting for Castiel as the angel hangs back, trying to help Meg up onto her feet. He makes a wild grab, fists a handful of Castiel's t-shirt and drags him close as trees start timbering down under the force of the steady and persistent vibration, and new webs of cracks funnel out from the main fault line to zig and zag wildly around them.

"Shit is happening, Cas," Dean roars when Castiel tries to break free and make his way back to the woman as she crashes to the ground again. "Run. And that's a fuckin' order."

The island is rocking and rolling around them as energetically as if it ate three bowls of Wheaties after it woke up, and Dean pounds his boots into the soil and tries to ignore how the trees shimmy and leap violently up and down. He can hear harsh, panting breath, chances flicking a glance over to see his brother next to him, face grim and jaw locked, arms and legs pumping. Beyond Sam, Castiel is loping effortlessly along like he's on the hunt, and it is _so_ not the time to feel turned on by that, but men think about sex every seven seconds, so Dean can't help it.

The trail having been cleared by Sam's industrious application of the machete, it takes far less time to get back to where they started from than it did to cut through on the outward journey, but it still seems like too long a sprint.

The Duck is nestled in the fleshy vegetation where they left it, and where before it had seemed a somewhat reliable and indefatigable machine when it wasn’t coughing up its lungs or cutting out entirely, Dean thinks now that it looks small, miniature even, like a toy from his old G.I. Joe set. They hotfoot towards it over the rich and rotting earth beneath their feet, hands everywhere to help and lift and steady, and Dean tunes his ears backwards to pick out the sound of Meg sobbing close behind them as she finally catches up. She's muttering prayers in what sounds like Latin, praying maybe, and as Dean finds himself pondering abstractedly on how it is she can actually run in those heels Castiel snaps at her in Enochian. Dean is certain that he just told her to shut the fuck up.

They reach the Duck and Sam doesn't even try for the door, just vaults over the side with the springheel-jack bounciness of a guy with eight-foot-long legs. Dean clambers up after him as he starts the engine, thinks, _thank fuckin' Chrysler_ as the responding rev grumbles through the noise of the land disintegrating around them. He turns to reach for Castiel, and Meg tumbles in after them. There's no time to argue about space or loyalty as Dean screams himself hoarse for Sam to _get us the fuck out of here_.

Sam isn't waiting. The Duck pitches forward while Meg clamors on and on, her knuckles white as she hangs onto the side of the vehicle, and Dean shuts his mind to the sound of her terror. Castiel is crouched there close to him, an uncomfortable jostle of hips and elbows, and under ordinary circumstances this would give rise to all kinds of delicious juxtapositions to be taken advantage of, but Dean can't look away from the crevices and fissures that are opening up the surface behind them, ripping the island into pieces the way one might rip wet newspaper into shreds.

It's time for plan B, and Dean puts his lips close to Castiel's ear, speaks clearly and urgently. "Defcon one. You're cleared for take-off, buddy."

Castiel swings his head around and Dean can see it in his eyes before he replies, some mix of embarrassment and frustration. "I've tried already. I'm – not working. That thing is blocking me somehow."

His voice is almost lost in the fury that surrounds them, but the words are still like a punch to Dean's gut. _They aren't getting out of this_.

Wind is howling up out of the cracks like tornadoes, the force of the air moving the jungle trees so they gyrate frantically, like giant egg-beaters whisking the sky. Their leaves tear off and billow away into the blue before showering down, and it's like they're driving through a ticker tape parade Cthulhu laid on just for them. Sam dodges larger trees and grinds them right over skinnier ones, forces the Duck through wild hairpin turns that threaten to tip it over as the vehicle labors its way over the injured land, dragging its barge behind it like a broken limb. Dean can see black smoke belching out from under the hood, knows he'll see the yellow glow of flames any minute now, but Sam doesn't ease off.

Dean feels the vise-tight grip of Castiel's arms around his chest, drawing him further into the Duck and close to him. He looks around, meets eyes that are staring fear back at him. _Castiel is scared_ , he thinks, scared of losing him in this wild getaway-that-isn't, scared of the thing waking up beneath the earth. Dean knows that should terrify him, but he swallows it down, puts his hand against the angel's cheek. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue but he damn well won't say them, won't accept this, won't give into this, won't ever let Castiel know he thinks this might be the end of them.

_It's rising up_ , he thinks, as he turns to look behind them again. He stares, agog, and he couldn't look away if he wanted to, even though he can feel Castiel's lips soft, and warm, and desperate against his ear, _I love you, Dean. I always have_.

In the distance the surface erupts, and then nothing is distant anymore. But if those startling rips, sending rock flying like glass shattering into a million slivers, are terrifying and gargantuan, the next vibration reduces them to no more than a sneeze on the Richter scale. The earth heaves and detonates outwards, in an almighty blast that turns the crust into immense shards careening into the sky, and all the terrain they've covered since they staggered away from the clearing is blown apart in an instant as the fracture yawns wide enough to engulf all the ground from here to there.

Dean has time to think there is something gray and dark, like an endless shadow in the deep, and the gray and the dark is moving, is watching him; and he remembers hearing that when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

The Duck goes vertical. One second the tires are biting into the soil and the next there is no soil left to bite into, and Dean feels his sense of orientation blown to smithereens as they start to flip upside-down. There is no time to scream – all he feels is his angel's hand come up over his eyes, as though the last thing Castiel can offer him is the mercy of seeing nothing of this horror at all. It blinds Dean to the shape of shadows that rise up to meet them, blinds him to the tentacle that snaps like a lasso in the air and furls about the vehicle, swathing them in warm, wet, spongy darkness.


End file.
